Blog Post 5

Define online marketing and discuss how it differs from traditional marketing.

Online marketing is completely different from traditional marketing because of the way they approach their target audiences and advertising strategies. For an example, online marketing now consists of engaging the user and then letting the user do the promoting for you. With traditional marketing it is all up to the message that is presented and what outlet of marketing it is presented. Now the user is in control, which makes it a lot cheaper for businesses. Another financial aspect with advertising is that now you can click through advertisements after a certain amount of seconds where as with traditional marketing you could display all 30 seconds or minute of your ad without the message getting interrupted. Then you would need to decide on if depending on the users is worth it for your brand or company or playing it safe with traditional marketing.

            In terms of social networking, this is a vast and new way to spread your message that companies didn’t have the privilege of in the past. Social networking has now been exploited as a new medium of promoting consumers and customers to use that viral word of mouth. People can now retweet and share items, which can change how companies or brands handle promotional items with their marketing. Normally, with traditional marketing the radio or television would pop in with a promotional deal of only acting on the product within that unlimited amount of time. Now with online marketing people can do the retweeting or sharing and reach way more people than you would’ve with traditional marketing tools.

Defending Girl Talk

Starting the basics, fair use is the reproduction of copyright material for different, circumstantial purposes without having to pay a fee. If you really look at mashups, there is a strong defense for the clarification of fair use with this music.  One major aspect that comes into play with defending Girl Talk is that it hasn't undermined the sale of the music productions he uses. For an example, people who buy Girl Talk concert tickets aren't normally the ones who are running after oldies songs because they were incorporated in the music. People are there to see Girl Talk play his mashups and act out like he does in the concerts.

However, this is where the defense of the Girl Talk case really comes in, which is transformative use. The first main defense of this is that Girl Talk is using something new and different to the work. The documentary talked about how other songs, and some very famous, have used the same beats and just put a little tweak of a spin on it throughout several years and decades. Even though there may be the same notes from a piece he is the one that is mashing up the beats together to make a song. This then makes it new and different fitting the fourth part of fair use.

I understand that the courts and lawmakers wanted to leave the definition open to a similar standpoint of freedom of speech but is this actual vagueness limiting us more that it should? It appears that with this new wave of technology and the digital age that the courts tend to shut down under the big conglomerate media corporations that go after the money of those who apparently committed a crime. This is limiting the creativity of artists and at some point, hopefully in the near future, will be redefined to help creativity get the upper hand back.